Damning Ming with faint praise, Simon Hughes has just done an interview with GMTV for broadcast on Sunday:

Simon Hughes …the leadership is always an issue in all of the parties, we live in a presidential system and therefore the leader has to continually do well and better and he had a good conference, he did a very good speech, it was meant to be the best conference speech he’s made since being leader, and Ming knows that and there’s no sign that he’s not up for that as a task.

Steve RichardsSo just to clarify, he has to do better?

Simon HughesWell, of course, because he started, everybody accepts that it wasn’t a great start, that he’s improved considerably, this conference speech went really well and he knows all the time that the party has to do better, that’s my job, collectively, and the leader obviously has to do better, get better at getting the message across better, at getting the policy out better…

Later on Hughes says, referring to Cameron, he didn’t come into politics to “down people”. Well apart from Ming…